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IDEA # 3: THE PRIME BELIEF 
In the mid-19th century, a boy was born into a wealthy family. 
From the beginning, the boy suffered serious health issues: an 
eye problem that left him temporarily blinded as a child, a 
terrible stomach condition that forced him onto a strict diet, 
and back pains that would plague him throughout his life. 
Despite his father’s disapproval, he aspired to become a 
painter when he grew up. He practiced his craft but for years 
and years, every attempt ended in failure. Meanwhile, his 
brother went on to become a world-renowned novelist. As he 
entered adulthood, many of his health problems worsened, his 
relationship with his father fell apart, and the young man 
began to struggle with severe bouts of depression and 
​
suicidal 
thoughts
​
. 
Desperate to fix his son’s situation, the young man’s father 
used his business connections to get the young man admitted 
to Harvard Medical School. Fortunately, the young man was 
smart. He could handle the coursework. But he never felt at 
home or at peace at Harvard. After touring a psychiatric 
facility one day, the young man mused in his diary that he felt 
he had more in common with the patients than the other 
doctors. 
Dissatisfied with his medical training, the young man looked 
for other opportunities within academy that may have suited 
him. He was desperate. He was willing to try anything, even 
something radical and completely different. 
He soon discovered an anthropological expedition to the 
Amazon rainforest. The young man signed on, excited to get 
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away and start anew, to perhaps discover something new and 
interesting about the world
​
 and about himself. 
In those days, intercontinental travel was long, complicated 
and dangerous. But the young man made it to the Amazon. 
There he promptly contracted smallpox and nearly died alone 
in the jungle. He was rushed back to civilization and the 
expedition left him behind. Upon recovering from smallpox, 
his back spasms returned worse than ever. He was emaciated 
from the disease, stuck in a foreign land alone with no way to 
communicate, and continued to exist in a daily excruciating 
pain. 
The young man managed to return home to a disappointed 
father, nearly 30 years old, still unemployed, 
​
a failure at 
everything
​
 he had ever attempted, with a body that betrayed 
him and wasn’t likely to ever get better. Despite every 
advantage and opportunity he had been given in life, he had 
failed them all. The only constants in his life seemed to be 
suffering and disappointment. The man fell into a deep 
depression and planned to take his own life. 
But first, he had an idea. 
He made an agreement with himself. In his diary, he wrote 
that he would try an experiment. He would spend one entire 
year believing that he was 100% responsible for everything 
that occurred in his life, no matter what. During this period, he 
would do everything in his power to change his circumstances, 
no matter the outcome. If, he wrote, at the end of one year of 
taking responsibility for everything in his life
​
 and working to 
improve it, if nothing in his life had actually improved in that 
time, then it will be apparent that he was truly powerless to 
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the circumstances around him. And then he would take his 
own life. 
The young man’s name was William James, the father of 
American psychology and one of the most influential 
philosophers of the past 100 years. Of course, he wasn’t these 
things yet, but he would go on to become them in large part 
due to his experiment. James would later refer to his 
experiment as his “rebirth,” and would credit it with 
everything that he would later accomplish.